


Curiosity Kills

by renaissance



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Ensemble Cast, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5099003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yaku wakes up with no memory of last night's job and a black cat on his doorstep, and all of his colleagues think he's dead—now, it's his mystery to solve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity Kills

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Happy birthday Shaye! Here are some cats for you ☆

Yaku’s clock reads 08:14 in glowing red when he wakes up, temples pounding but otherwise suspiciously calm. It’s not like him to sleep through his alarm—six sharp, ready with enough time for the commute to the office—but he’d been out late last night after Nekomata had called him around eleven as a last resort, and—

—and, actually, what happened next?

He abandoned his half-finished drink, grabbed the wrong coat on his way out the door, and left his phone on the table, along with the address Nekomata had sent him. Of course, he only realised he’d forgotten his phone the moment he stepped through the train doors, just before they closed on him, but he had a vague memory of the address so he let his hunter’s instinct guide him.

After that, though, he remembers nothing. There are a lot of questions. Did he find the coven? Did he successfully shut down the operations? How the _hell_ did he get home?

With a grumble, he rolls out of bed, dragging a sheet with him as a cape over his shoulders. The sheet stays in place while he eats breakfast, making him feel very regal, until he reluctantly runs a warm shower and gets ready to leave for the office. This time he makes sure he has his phone with him.

And because today can’t get any worse, Yaku opens his front door to a black cat sitting on the top step, peering intently up at him. Swearing, he shuts the door in its face.

Late, no memories of the night before, and now he’s _cursed_ too.

“Deep breaths, Morisuke,” he whispers to himself. “Just walk around it.”

Steeling himself, he opens the door again. The cat is still there. If cats could smirk, this cat would be an olympic medallist. Yaku can’t tell why he gets a funny feeling from the cat, but he pins it down to witches, curses, all the hazards of the job that he’s so far avoided very successfully. He _really_ needs to figure out what happened last night.

He steps around the cat and down his front steps, tightening his grip on his messenger bag. He surveys the street—nothing out of the ordinary, except maybe the removal van parked next door, but maybe his annoying neighbours are finally moving out—and he doesn’t look back until he’s turned the corner and the train station’s in sight. With any luck, the cat will have stayed on his doorstep. But cursed men don’t get the luxury of luck, and the cat is following Yaku at a meandering pace, its tail swinging as it walks.

It looks up as Yaku turns around, and if he hadn’t seen plenty of stranger things in his line of work he wouldn’t believe it when the cat deliberately makes eye contact with him.

“What are you looking at, huh?” Yaku asks. “Don’t you have someone else to stalk?”

The cat shakes its head. The motion is barely perceptible, but Yaku’s a witchhunter—he’s trained to pick up tiny details.

“Oh, so you can understand me, huh,” he mumbles, bending down to look the cat in the eye. “Well, understand _this_.”

If the cat seems amused when Yaku sticks up his middle finger, Yaku most definitely does _not_ notice. He stands up straight and presses on to the train station. Cats can’t get on trains. That’s illegal.

Only, once Yaku’s gone through the barriers, he gets the distinct feeling that he’s being followed. It’s almost nine—still, technically, peak hour—and the station’s packed, but somehow _no-one_ notices the black cat following Yaku to the platform. Yaku grits his teeth and keeps walking.

He resigns himself to the fact that the cat’s going to follow him onto the train, but it’s no less mortifying when the cat curls itself around his legs, to the complete obliviousness of everyone around them. Yaku’s knuckles start to turn white while he clings to the railing like if he doesn’t he’ll fall out of the train itself.

Thankfully, the trip north isn’t so long, and the walk from the station to the office isn’t far. Tokyo Police’s Special Branch is located on the outskirts of town, on the seventeenth floor of a concrete monstrosity that tries its best to look abandoned. There are vines growing all over the building, making it look like it sprung out of the ground in the middle of a park. The sliding doors open automatically for Yaku, but the button for the lift scans for his thumbprint before accepting him as one of the building’s inhabitants.

The cat follows Yaku into the building, but stops short of joining him in the lift, choosing instead to loiter. It’s probably all the protective magic on this place. The Special Branch has a history of hiring registered witches with no history of coven activity to ward against unsavoury sorts.

When Yaku gets up to the seventeenth floor, the workroom is mostly empty. Yaku thanks whatever luck he has left that at least the Scooby Squad won’t be around to bother him. At the far end of the workroom is an office with a brass plate on the door, the office of the most senior witchhunter, Nekomata. Feeling more confident without the cat trailing him, Yaku takes the workroom in strides and knocks loudly on the door.

“Come in,” Nekomata says. When Yaku opens the door and walks in, Nekomata looks surprised to see him. “I have to say, I didn’t expect to see you alive this morning.”

Yaku feels irrationally angry for a fleeting moment. “So you sent me into danger, knowing that—”

“Nothing of the sort,” Nekomata says sternly. “I had no idea that this coven would be so dangerous, but I did know it would be tricky business, which is why I called _you_ , one of my most senior, trusted officers.”

“Sorry,” Yaku says, looking away. “I didn’t mean—I just, I have no memory of it.”

When he looks back, Nekomata’s face has gone a bit pale. “No memory at all?”

“I don’t remember anything after getting on the train,” Yaku says. “And now, there’s a black cat following me around. It’s, uh, waiting downstairs, probably.”

“So you were cursed and had your memory wiped,” Nekomata muses. “They must be more dangerous than I thought.” He laughs. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright,” Yaku says. “For now, I just want to get to the bottom of what actually happened last night.”

Nekomata frowns. “Kai called in just after midnight. He said you’d given him a distress call, but when he turned up to the address you gave him, there was nothing there.”

“Nothing, as in, the coven had been abandoned?” Yaku asks.

“No,” Nekomata says, his tone darkening, “as in, the building had disappeared completely.”

That’s—that’s not normal. Buildings don’t just _disappear_. Witches aren’t that powerful. Whatever did this is not something Yaku wants to be hanging around. And yet, he’s a witchhunter for a reason. He loves the smell of danger, always falls for a good mystery.

“I’m going back there,” he tells Nekomata. “I need to remember, and I need to get this curse off me.”

Nekomata pauses, his mouth scrunched up into a line. “Stay safe.”

That’s all the encouragement Yaku needs. He practically runns for the lift, even though the cat’s probably waiting for him at the other end. He can cope with a cursed black cat stalker, just for one day.

On the way down, Yaku checks the outgoing calls on his phone. Sure enough, right on midnight he called Kai. Not that he has any memory of it. And then, an idea hits him—as the lift doors open, Yaku flicks through his texts for the address Nekomata forwarded to him.

Nothing. There’s nothing.

“Fuck,” he snaps, shutting off his phone screen angrily. And, then, because it would have bugged him, he unlocks his phone, closes the messaging app, and turns the screen off again.

A quick glance around the building’s lobby—hunter’s reconnaissance—and the cat’s not there anymore. Yaku exhales in relief. “No curse, huh?” he says to himself, unzipping the front flap of his bag to put his phone away.

“Oh, no, it was never a curse.”

Yaku nearly jumps out of his skin, fumbling his phone but catching it before it hits the ground. He whirls around, only to be faced with a man about his age and a good twenty centimetres taller, with the most ridiculous haircut Yaku has ever seen.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demands, pulling back defensively, phone clutched perilously between his fingers.

“Meow,” the man says.

“Oh _hell_ no,” Yaku says. “Abso-fucking-lutely not.”

“Afraid so,” the cat says. His voice has a bit of a purr to it. Yaku wants to scream. “Kuroo Tetsurou, at your service.”

Yaku narrows his eyes. “I don’t need your _service_.”

“Where you’re going, you’re gonna need a bodyguard,” Kuroo says. “Or, really, I’d rather you _didn’t_ go there.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t even know you,” Yaku says. “So, thanks, but no thanks.”

Kuroo pauses, leaning down a bit to put his face right up in Yaku’s personal space. “What were you doing on your phone? Trying to find out where you were last night?”

“None of your—wait, how do you know that I don’t remember anything about last night?” Yaku narrows his eyes up at Kuroo. Even if this guy is some sort of cat incarnate, it doesn’t scare Yaku. He’s faced worse.

“I was there,” Kuroo says simply. “Saved you from almost certain destruction. Don’t I get a thank you, at least?”

Yaku sighs. “You’re not doing me any favours by ‘guarding’ me, you know. And if you’re not cursed into following me around, then you can piss off.”

“You can't get rid of me that easily,” Kuroo says. “Check this—”

With a pop and a flash of bright light, Kuroo disappears. Yaku looks down to find the black cat back at his feet. Of course, he’s only transforming here because he couldn’t do it in front of normal people, and Yaku knows for a fact that there are no security cameras in the building’s lobby—Kuroo probably worked that out easily.

The one thing Kuroo didn’t take into account is that a cat can’t outrun a trained witchhunter.

Yaku bolts for the automatic doors, messenger bag flapping at his side, and runs for the train station. He needs to get a hold of Kai, and fast.

Unfortunately, Kuroo is fast as a cat. He’s smart, too, and keeps Yaku in his sight. So, when Yaku makes it back to the station, short of breath, and finds Kuroo peering up at him smugly, he wants to _yell_.

 _Man Loses His Shit At Innocent Cat In Fairly Crowded Train Station_ —probably not a good look.

“Right,” Yaku says, once he’s on the platform with Kuroo still trotting by his side, “since you’re so hell-bent on doing this…”

He reaches down and scoops Kuroo up into his arms. Kuroo struggles and hisses, but he seems to decide it’s not worth it making a scene and calms down just as the train pulls up.

 _Man Carries Pugnacious Cat Onto Train_ —also not a good look.

Of course, people don’t notice Kuroo. It’s probably some weird magic, although Yaku imagines it would be inconvenient to keep it up when Kuroo’s in his human form. He sits them down towards the corner of the carriage, though, just in case.

“Here’s the plan,” Yaku says, “I’m going home, retooling, and then I’m calling Kai to see what he knows about what happened.”

Kuroo cocks his head in confusion.

“Don't look at me like that,” Yaku says. “Kai is a friend of the special branch. He helps us out with odd jobs like the one I thought I was going on last night.”

Lifting a paw, Kuroo nudges at Yaku’s bag.

“I know you think it s a bad idea to chase this up,” Yaku says, “but you’re only a cat, so, no offence, I don’t care about your opinion.”

Yaku doesn’t talk for the rest of the trip. Kuroo starts to get restless, so Yaku takes to scratching behind his ears. He’s spent a lot of time with Kai’s cats, and it’s reassuring that the tricks he’s picked up work on human cats too. When he gets off the train, though, he lets Kuroo down. The streets are still busy, so there’s no way he’ll risk transforming and doing anything stupid.

“I’d tell you that we’re almost there, but you were here this morning,” Yaku says under his breath. Kuroo hears, and nudges Yaku’s leg with his head.

The other problem is that Yaku is a cat person. His landlord has a strict No Pets rule, which is good for Yaku, because otherwise he’d have at least three cats. Maybe more. A cat that can’t be noticed by most people is encouragement in the wrong direction.

“I’m not keeping you,” he tells Kuroo, more of a reminder for himself. In response, Kuroo runs ahead, waiting impatiently at Yaku’s front door, just as he’d been that morning. And because Yaku is almost certainly cursed, the removal van is gone and his annoying neighbours are blaring heavy metal.

And, predictably, the moment they get inside, Kuroo pops back into his human form. It’s a good reminder to Yaku that he is _definitely_ not getting too comfortable with having this sort of animal around.

“Nice place,” Kuroo says. “Cosy.”

“Shut up,” Yaku says. He heads straight for the kitchen, keeping his bag with him in case Kuroo decides to try anything. “Have you even been in a house before?”

“I’m a house cat,” Kuroo says, like that’s something to be proud of.

Yaku frowns. “What _are_ you, actually? Cat or human?”

“Both,” Kuroo says, sitting on Yaku’s countertop and inspecting one of the eggplants that’s been sitting there for a few days, never quite making it to the fridge.

“Yeah, but,”—Yaku grabs the eggplant from Kuroo’s hand and places it back on the counter—“what were you born as?”

“Both,” Kuroo says again. He has the most infuriating smile.

Yaku decides to try another line of questioning. “So are you a familiar?”

Kuroo pauses, glancing at the eggplant. “If I said I am, you’d have to arrest me for being complicit in unlicensed witchcraft. If I said I’m not, you’d think I was lying.”

“Fair enough,” Yaku says, grabbing some carrots from the fridge. “Well, if you’re going to hang around, make yourself useful and cut some vegetables.”

“Aww,” Kuroo says, “you’re making me lunch?”

“ _We’re_ making lunch,” Yaku says, “for _me_. You can get some catfood on the way out.”

They both know he’s joking, but Kuroo acts hurt anyway. Still, he’s a perfectly amiable house guest, if a bit distractingly handsome, and is quiet while they eat.

“So what now?”

“Now,” Yaku says, putting down his chopsticks, “we make a house call.”

Kai only lives a couple of blocks away from Yaku, so it’s a short walk, and Yaku texts ahead that he’s on his way. Dutifully, Kuroo turns back into a cat before they go outside—though not without some grumbling about how he wishes cats could talk.

“Careful,” Yaku says. “If you get smart with me, I’ll pick you up again.”

The door to Kai’s house is covered in vines, with a large brass knocker that looks totally out of place in their traditional neighbourhood. It’s the only real sign that maybe something a little out-of-the-ordinary happens on the other side of the door.

A few seconds after Yaku knocks, he hears footsteps approaching, but the door doesn't open.

“Who is it?” Kai asks, a tentative edge to his voice.

“It’s me, you knob,” Yaku snaps. “Open up. I’m here on police business—”

—only by a technicality, but if it gets Kai to open up, then it’s a white lie.

The door opens by a crack, and Kai peers down at Yaku. He _feels_ Kai casting a spell, and flinches back. That’s something new, something he hasn’t felt before. “Ouch—hey, are you checking me for glamours?”

“Sorry,” Kai says, in a tone of voice that is not actually apologetic at all, “thought I sensed something. I had to check if it was really you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be _really me_?” Yaku asks.

“After last night,” Kai says, opening the door fully and signalling for Yaku to follow him in, “we all thought you’d be dead.”

By now, Kuroo’s got the message, and he stays outside.

Kai’s house always takes a while for Yaku to adjust to—it reeks of witchcraft, and Yaku has to remind himself that this is _licensed_ witchcraft. “Might as well have died, for all I know,” Yaku says. “I’ve got no memory of what happened last night. At all.”

“That’s,” Kai says, pausing, “interesting.”

“You’re telling me,” Yaku says. As Kai leads him towards the kitchen and puts on the kettle, Yaku bends down in passing to pat one of Kai’s cats. “Uh, stupid question, but do any of your cats turn into humans?”

Kai stills. “So you remember _something_ , huh.”

“What does that mean?” Yaku asks.

Sighing, Kai leans back against his kitchen counter. “Let me start from the beginning. You called me, and I showed up to the address you gave me, and there was nothing there except a hole in the ground where a building should have been. Not even any evidence of an explosion.”

“Nekomata’s told me that much,” Yaku says.

Kai hums in time with the kettle’s dying whistle, and he breaks in his story to fill up his teapot with boiling water. “Green tea’s alright with you?”

“More than,” Yaku says. He could do with something to calm his nerves.

“Alright,” Kai says. “So, I didn’t approach the crime scene—because whatever strong magic had been used was the sort that gave me serious _stay away_ vibes. I was hiding behind a parked car across the street, and that’s when I saw two people leaving the site. One was short with long hair and a bad dye job, and the other was tall, with messy black hair.”

 _Kuroo_.

“Then,” Kai continues, “the short one turned into a cat and they disappeared around the corner.”

“Wait,” Yaku says, “the _short_ one? Are you sure it wasn’t the tall one?”

“Certain,” Kai says.

So there’s at least one other cat person on the loose, and Kai has no idea what happened before the building disappeared. Great.

“Do you remember the address of the place?” Yaku asks.

At this, Kai looks confused. “I—yes, I should, it was… out west somewhere… ? Hold on, you texted it to me—”

Except, Yaku has a terrible feeling about this.

“I don’t have the text anymore,” Kai says. “What the—”

“Same thing happened to me, but with Nekomata’s text,” Yaku says. “Ugh. I was hoping you’d at least remember.”

“I feel like I _do_ remember,” Kai says, “except, I d—oh! You can probably ask Taketora. I called in the clean-up team to, uh, look for traces of your body.”

“Delightful,” Yaku says, glowering. “Looks like I’m getting in touch with the Scooby Squad.”

Kai holds back a laugh. “You shouldn’t call them that, you know. One day you’ll really hurt their feelings.”

Yaku shrugs. “I’m good to their faces. Hey, thanks for the tea, but I’ve got to go—I’ll let you know how it goes, okay?”

“I didn’t even pour the—”

Before Kai can finish, Yaku turns to leave, stepping over cats to get to the door.

“Stay safe, at least,” Kai says.

Yaku shoots him a grin. “Don’t worry, Kai. I always land on my feet.”

Once Kai’s closed the door behind him, the first thing that Yaku notices is the removal van from that morning, parked across the road—it’s brazenly inconspicuous. The second thing he notices is that there are now two black cats waiting for him.

“Kuroo,” Yaku scolds, “did you bring a friend?”

The larger of the two cats brushes against Yaku’s leg in response, does a circle around him and comes back to rest in front of him. The small cat has not moved at all.

“Alright, well,” Yaku says, “I’m being followed by two cats and a removalist, and I need to find a group of crackpots with a mystery machine, so I guess we’ll call it a party. Come on.”

He sets off towards the train station, and he regrets not borrowing one of the police cars when he was at headquarters earlier. It would stick out more than a removal van, but at least he wouldn’t be stuck catching trains everywhere. While he walks, he pulls out his phone and gives Shibayama a call, since Taketora’s probably driving.

“Yaku-san? You’re—”

“Afternoon, Shibayama,” Yaku says. “I’m not dead, and I was hoping you could help me out with something.”

“Just a second,” Shibayama says. “We’re in your neighbourhood.”

Yaku glowers. “How do you know I’m at home? I could be—”

“Fukunaga’s got a trace on your call,” Shibayama says. Yaku can practically hear the apologetic smile. “We’ll be there in five. Just stay where you are.”

Yaku hangs up, telling himself to breathe deeply.

“Cheer up, Yaku!”

It’s _Kuroo_ talking, and how did he turn into a human without Yaku noticing? He’s holding the other cat in his arms and has the sort of smirk on his face that makes Yaku want to yell. Never mind how Kuroo knows Yaku’s name. He’s not going to ask.

“Can’t you just pick one form and stick with it?” he snaps.

“I get restless,” Kuroo says, shrugging.

“Oh, yeah,” Yaku says, “aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Kuroo looks down, almost like he’d forgotten he was holding the other cat. “This is Kenma,” he says. “He prefers being a cat.”

“You could learn a lesson from that,” Yaku mumbles.

“Aw, come on,” Kuroo says, “you like my human form. But, that’s besides the point. I’m worried your little mission is getting a bit too dangerous.”

“You transformed just to tell me _that_?” Yaku asks. “I already know your opinion on the matter, thanks.”

Kuroo heaves a sigh, like this is hard for him to say. “If you’re going to do this, I have to come too. It’s my obligation, as your bodyguard.”

“I told you I never asked for this, right?” Yaku says, although he’s already sort of given up.

“Right,” Kuroo says. He opens his mouth as though he’s going to follow that up, but then shuts it again, and then opens it. “Except, my partner sort of bound me with a contract.”

“Your partner?” Yaku asks.

“Partner in crime,” Kuroo says, a bit too quickly. “You know, the witch to my familiar.”

Before Yaku can ask for details, there’s the sound of a car tearing down the street.

“Oh, great,” Yaku says. “That’ll be the Scooby Squad.”

“Seriously?” Kuroo asks. “I love that show.”

Yaku lightly smacks his arm. “No, not seriously. Do me a favour and turn back into a cat, okay? I don’t want to make introductions.”

Kuroo gleefully disobeys.

Like Yaku had suspected, Taketora’s at the wheel when he pulls up in his six-seater van, almost crashing into a lamppost.

“Hop in,” he calls. “We can talk on the road.”

There’s barely room for Yaku in the back alongside Shibayama and Inuoka, so getting Kuroo in really _is_ a squeeze.

“We’re glad you’re alive, Yaku-san!” greets Lev, twisting around from the front seat.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Kuroo asks. He’s basically sitting on top of Yaku, but Kenma looks perfectly comfortable draped over both of them.

“You’re another witchhunter?” Inuoka asks, leaning over Shibayama.

“Not quite,” Kuroo says.

There’s a mutter of “cryptic” from the front seat—Yaku thinks it might have been Fukunaga. He sighs. “Kuroo, these are the Scoo—the Special Branch’s clean-up team. Taketora at the wheel, Fukunaga, Lev, Inuoka, Shibayama. They deal with crime scenes. Clean-up team, this is Kuroo.”

Lev turns again, grinning back at them. “Are you a _witch_ , then?”

“Not that either,” Kuroo says.

“But you have a familiar,” Lev points out.

Kuroo smirks. “Who said he’s _my_ familiar?”

A couple of things start to fit together in Yaku’s mind—Kenma was the cat Kai saw, and the person, tall-with-messy-black-hair, would have been Kenma’s partner witch. But then, where was Kuroo and _his_ partner? And how were they involved in whatever happened to Yaku?

“Where are you guys off to?” Yaku asks.

“We’ve got a job out west,” Taketora says. “Nekomata said no-one was harmed, but it looks like there was magic involved, so we’re on clean-up.”

“Stop the car,” Kuroo says suddenly, grabbing the door handle. “Stop—Yaku we have to get out—”

“Sorry buddy,” Taketora says, “doors are locked until we reach our destination. Van rules.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Kuroo says. “I’m a bodyguard, contractually obliged—I’m not allowed to lead Yaku into danger.”

“Re _lax_ ,” Taketora says. “Told you this isn’t a harmful one, yeah?”

Taketora drives fast and dangerous, but he’s never had an accident in all the years he’s worked for the Special Branch. Yaku’s always a little bit tense when he’s in the mystery machine. Kuroo wasn’t on edge when they first set off, but he is now, and even Kenma is hissing a bit. So, okay, maybe Yaku is worried now. Maybe this _was_ a bad idea.

After twenty minutes, the van pulls up outside what, at first glance, appears to be an abandoned lot in a desolate suburb. But, when Yaku looks closer, it’s like there might have been a building there, but it just _disappeared_.

“This must be where I was last night,” Yaku mumbles.

“Huh?” Inuoka says. “No, that was a few suburbs away.”

 _Weird_ , Yaku thinks. Almost too weird for his liking.

The moment Taketora unlocks the doors, Kuroo yanks open the one next to him and Kenma leaps out, followed by Kuroo, who pulls Yaku by the wrist. Yaku has no choice but to follow.

“This is bad, this is _so_ bad,” Kuroo says. “ _You_ cannot be here.”

Except, he’s dashing towards the hole in the ground, pulling Yaku with him. Standing in front of the site is someone with black-and-white hair that looks like it was struck by lightning, wearing a billowing black cape. He looks striking against the concrete neighbourhood and the cloudy sky. When he turns around, Yaku notes that his goofy smile is completely incongruous to his melodramatic flair.

“Kuroo!” he calls. “Good to see you, but, what are you—”

“No time to talk, Bokuto,” Kuroo says. “We need to get Yaku out of here. Where’s Akaashi?”

“Excuse me,” Yaku says, shaking off Kuroo’s grip, “but why _me_ specifically?”

“Akaashi should be on his way,” Bokuto says, ignoring Yaku. “I thought Kenma would be with him, though.”

Kuroo looks a little embarrassed. “Kenma wanted to help out. I probably should have left him with Akaashi, but, uh—”

“Shut _up_!” Yaku shouts. “Just _shut up_ for a moment.” He waits until he has Kuroo and Bokuto’s attention to continue. “What I’ve worked out so far is that Kuroo and Kenma are shapeshifting familiars, Bokuto is Kuroo’s partner witch, Akaashi is Kenma’s, and he probably drives a removal van. I’ve worked out that there is some sort of dangerous magic that disappears whole buildings, and that I accidentally ended up dealing with it on a job that left everyone thinking I’d be dead. Could somebody _please_ tell me what happened last night?”

Yaku’s tirade is met with complete silence.

“Dude,” Bokuto says tentatively, turning to Kuroo, “you wiped his memory?”

Kuroo puts up his hands out defensively. “You told me to keep him out of trouble!”

Bokuto buries his face in his hands. “Curiosity kills cats,” he mumbles. “You didn’t expect that he’d try to work it out?”

“I didn’t think he’d do such a damn good job of it!” Kuroo says, more desperate than angry, but it still leaves Yaku feeling a little bit hurt at being underestimated.

“I’m a witchhunter,” Yaku says, “but before I got involved in this line of work I was training to be a detective. Give me some credit. I don’t need to be coddled by a contractual bodyguard, and I _certainly_ don’t need my memory wiped to protect me, because _I can protect myself_!”

At that, Bokuto laughs. “Oh man, Kuroo told you he was a contractual bodyguard?”

Yaku narrows his eyes. “He’s not?”

Bokuto sighs. “Kuroo, do you want to explain or will I?”

As they talk, Yaku is vaguely aware that the Scooby Squad have taken out their instruments and are beginning to poke around the site. Bokuto doesn’t seem to care about stopping them, which Yaku would probably find more interesting if his cat stalker hadn’t been lying to him all day.

Kuroo mimics Bokuto’s sigh. “ _Fine_. Yaku, I owe you an apology for lying—I thought you’d be more inclined to keep me around if I told you I _had_ to be there. What—ugh, what _actually_ happened was that I saved your life last night, and I wanted to keep looking out for you. Just because.”

“Because he think you’re _cute_ ,” Bokuto stage-whispers.

Kuroo punches him in the arm. “That is _so_ not why, you—”

Before Kuroo can continue, he’s cut off by the arrival of the removal van from earlier. A tall man with messy black hair gets out—presumably this is Akaashi—and Kenma immediately switches into his human form—shorter, with a bad dye job, although still taller than Yaku.

“Sorry I’m late,” Akaashi says. “Traffic. And now we have to leave, _fast_.”

“What’s up?” Bokuto asks.

“The instruments are going like mad,” Akaashi says. “They’re still around here.”

Before Yaku can so much as ask who _they_ are, he hears Inuoka yell, turns around in time to see him jump back from the building. “Who’s there?” Inuoka asks, as though he’s sensed a presence.

But—can’t he see them? There are two figures, shrouded in ash, emerging from the hole in the ground.

“Get back!” Bokuto shouts.

Yaku feels like he can’t move.

“This is exactly what I was worried would happen,” Kuroo says. “Ugh, Yaku, one more apology, in case this all goes wrong.”

“Don’t you have nine lives or something?” Yaku asks, trying to lighten the mood. It’s not very successful.

“About wiping your memory,” Kuroo continues, turning his back to Yaku and standing almost like a shield. “You won’t ever get those memories back.”

Yaku is almost painfully aware that the ashen creatures are approaching him, so to distract himself, he keeps his voice measured, asks, “Why not?”

Kuroo looks over his shoulder and grins. “That’s the thing about familiar magic. It can’t be undone.”

Then, there’s a flood of bright light that clouds Yaku’s vision, and a yell, and—

—this time, when Yaku opens his eyes and finds himself lying in his bed, it’s dark outside. He groans, rolling over onto his back.

“Don’t tell me,” he mutters, “I’ve had my memory wiped again.”

There’s a stirring at the foot of his bed, a pop and a flash of light, and when Yaku props himself up on his elbows, he sees Kuroo sitting there.

“Not this time,” Kuroo says. “Actually, you passed out before the fighting began. You’re still getting used to having magic in your system.”

“Magic—?” Yaku sits up properly, pulling his blankets around him. “You have a _lot_ of explaining to do, Kuroo.”

“Okay, okay,” Kuroo says, shifting up the bed a little so he’s sitting closer to Yaku. “There are new, powerful forces coming into the city. I work for—well, we’re removalists. We remove buildings that are tainted by nasty magic, like pulling a weed at the root. Those figures you saw this afternoon were the ghosts of the building, but, like I said—it’s powerful magic. They could still do a lot of damage.”

At least that gave Yaku an idea of how long he’d been out—it can’t have been more than a few hours. “And last night?” Yaku asks.

“Last night,” Kuroo says, “your boss probably didn’t realise that what he was sending you to deal with wasn’t ordinary witchcraft. By the time we showed up to get rid of the building, some of their magic had got inside you, and it was all we could do to keep you alive.”

“So what you’re saying is, I’m full of dangerous magic,” Yaku says. “That’s why you needed to keep me away from it? Because it’s a part of me now, and you thought I’d turn evil?”

Kuroo laughs. “Magic doesn’t make a person evil. It’s how you use it.” He pauses, looking a little sheepish. “But, yes, you’re a very powerful person now. Some people might call you a _witch_.”

“Okay,” Yaku says, taking a deep breath. This is something he’ll need a while to internalise, but with friends like Kai, the Scooby Squad, and now Kuroo and his removalists—he can probably work with it. “And you stuck around,” he adds, “to get me started on the right track. To keep me safe.”

“Sort of,” Kuroo says, looking away. “Also, ‘cause I think you’re cute.”

He looks jumpy, flustered, but Yaku can’t hold back a laugh.

“Anyway,” Kuroo says, composing himself and turning his head back to Yaku, “you _do_ need someone to hold your hand while you get used to magic. And since I don’t see anyone else volunteering, I guess you’re stuck with me.”

Yaku reaches out and takes one of Kuroo’s hands in his. “What a coincidence,” he says, smiling, “I was thinking of asking you to stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment!
> 
> (Full credit to the Rivers of London series for inspiring me to write what is essentially a miniature police procedural but with magic. Full credit to Shaye for the conversations and the headcanons that inspired this!)


End file.
